How to be a Dinner Guest Fit for a Queen

The Royal Wedding is mere hours away. What are you still doing here? Oh, you didn't get an invitation? That's too bad. But if, say, it was simply lost in the mail and you needed to jet off to merry old England to attend, we wouldn't want you to go unprepared. Heaven forbid you pick up the wrong fork! So just in case you ever sit down to dinner with the current or future Queen, we've rounded some guidelines.

Before you sit down to dinner you must know how to properly greet and be in the company of royalty. According to Mental Floss Magazine, the general rule is: do as royalty does. Say, for instance, the Queen enters a room. She is standing. If you are not standing, you should be. A small bow of the head is expected from the gentlemen and ladies should give a small curtsey. If the Queen happens to lavish attention on you and extend her hand in greeting, hold back your American urge to give it a good shake. Instead, simply touch her hand briefly. She should be addressed not as Queeny or Lizzy - no matter how much you think you have in common - but as Your Majesty at first and then ma'am later in the conversation.

Once the stress of meeting the Queen is through, it's time to move on to the main course: dinner. First thing - is the Queen sitting? No? Then neither should you. Wait until she has been seated and then you may take your place. At your setting you will be beset with a table setting of complexity far beyond your basic knife and fork. There will be a spectrum of forks on the left ascending in size from left to write and an amalgum of knives and spoons on the right. In a piece from The Guardian, Paul Burrell, a former royal butler, suggests that if you are confused by the collection of cutlery and glasses before you, the best thing to do is to do as the host does and use what he or she uses. But if you happen to err, you are in good company. Burrell related a story to The Guardian of a dinner party given on the Royal Yacht Britannia. When dessert was served "the prince forgot to watch what the Queen did - instead, he popped the grapes into his finger bowl, then some cherries, then when the cream and sugar came out, he poured them in too, making a kind of fruit soup." Beyond not drinking from your finger bowl, another key rule is to stop eating when the Queen stops eating. So before you head to dinner you had either grab a snack or hope that Her Majesty has a good appetite.

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Some other basic rules: never eat with your hands, keep your mouth closed when chewing, do not speak with your mouth full, when in doubt start with the cutlery on the outside and work your way in, only when you have finished with that cutlery do you use anything that is laid above the plate. Hold the fork in your left hand and the knife in your right, only cut your food as needed one piece at a time, do not scrape your plate with your cutlery, and, of course, leave everything to the servants. This is not the kind of dinner where you get up and help to clear the dishes at the end. There are many, many other rules but don't worry. If your invite finally shows up in the mail, just remember to do as the Queen does and you'll be just fine.

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